URGENT BUSINESS

03.17.11

House Votes to Cut NPR Funding

Cliff Owen / AP Photo

The House passed a Republican-proposed bill on Thursday that would strip NPR's federal funding. The vote came in at 228 to 192, a week after conservative guerilla
James O'Keefe videotaped a top NPR executive appearing to criticize the Tea Party, which resulted in his resignation as well as that of NPR's CEO Vivian Schiller. While House Republicans claimed the principle of the bill is to cut federal spending, the video was mentioned several times by both Republicans and Democrats during a heated debate on Thursday. Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn, who first proposed the bill, said, "This is not about the ideology of NPR executives ... but whether in this age of trillion-dollar deficits, taxpayers should subsidize a non-essential entity." Democrats fired back, insisting the bill would not save taxpayers any money, but was simply a measure to punish NPR. Meanwhile,
Congress has passed a three-week, stop-gap spending bill that passed went through the House last week. The bill to defund NPR, however, is unlikely to pass the Senate.